DAVISON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — Across Davison, there was a theme of damage from Thursday afternoon's hailstorm: cars.
Chris Graff is the owner of the Hank Graff Chevrolet Dealership in Davison, he told us every single car on their lot was damaged.
"If you’re a panicky person, you would be saying ’the sky is falling literally,'" said Graff.
When the baseball hail started plummeting around 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, customers and employees ran inside the dealership.
"It was loud, it was dark, it was deafening," described Graff. "Everyone was just kind of walking around saying, 'Wow, I can’t believe this is happening.'"
Community members say it wasn't just the size of the hail that was most terrifying, but the speed at which it was falling.
The proof is in the large dents on cars in the dealership's lot.
Additionally, Graff said 11 of their 12 dealership sky lights had hail come through them as well.
Throughout Davison, people shared photos and videos of storm damage outside of their homes, usually impacting their cars.
Wendy Wolcott told us the hail destroyed the top of their family camper and all their cars.
"At one point we walked out, and there was vehicles driving by, and you could hear the smashing of the windows," said Wolcott. "I had a friend call me saying she was inside her vehicle and it smashed her windows out, and she was grabbing bowls from the back covering her head because it was coming in from every way."
According to Graff, due to the surplus of automotive needs, AAA and Meemic (Michigan Educational Employees Mutual Insurance Company) are bringing in emergency response teams over the weekend to help with customer repairs.
His own employees have expressed worry about how they're going to sell cars with nothing but damaged inventory, but he's looking for the silver lining of this storm cloud.
He told us they may be able to offer discounted pricing on damaged vehicles that don't get fixed. No one that they know of was hurt and help from the community is already starting to pour in.
"To me, the interesting thing has been other dealers reaching out," said Graff. "I mean inventory is tough to get and we’ve had this outpouring of competitors saying ’Nope we’re going to help you out.' Which has really been neat."
